What Penelope Cruz said about Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

The Queen in Newmarket in November, where she unveiled a statue of a foal and a mare as a gift in the year of her 90th birthday, during a visit to the town often referred to as the headquarters of British racing. Photo: Chris Radburn/PA

At this time of year, every media man and his dog rakes over the coals of the past 12 months. Well, I’m going to be a bit contrary and do just half a job.

The second half of 2016 has been almost unremittingly awful. And while we should never forget the terrible plight of Syrians – and the sorrow of cities such as Berlin, which have suffered under the hand of the terrorist – the events of the past 20-odd weeks feel too raw and too fluid to want to revisit them yet.

So: I’m finishing a little further back – adding distance by sticking to the first six months of 2016 and trying to add some light to any unavoidable shadows.

The year began with a warning to litter louts. Fines were going to double to £150. Adrian Evans, chief executive of the Clean for the Queen campaign (ahead of her 90th birthday), bemoaned that some Brits seemed to think it was their human right to drop detritus in the street. The public was urged to challenge anyone doing it.

Fans of Radio 4’s rural serial The Archers were a bit nonplussed by the 65th anniversary episode. Expecting some great drama (akin to Nigel Pargetter’s fatal fall from the roof five years earlier) they found themselves listening to a farming debate: should a herd of Hereford dairy cows be sacrificed and replaced by a grass-fed herd?

Great-grandfather George Higgs celebrated his 109th birthday and declared the secret of a long life was not to worry about anything.

At the other end of the scale, little Prince George had his first day at nursery school – the Westacre Montessori in Norfolk. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Environment Agency had to defend himself before MPs after parts of Britain suffered devastating floods at the end of 2015. While the waters rose, he was on holiday in Barbados.

After East Anglia, you’d want to live in Congresbury, Somerset. The village was lauded as the most generous in Britain after locals carried out 800 acts of kindness in 12 months – such as painting public seating and quietly taking care of a neighbour’s vet’s bill.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and actress and model Jerry Hall got engaged in 2016 after a four-month romance. The 84-year-old revealed in January he would be marrying Mick Jaggers former girlfriend. They were married in the spring. Photo: Ian West/PA

Hundreds of rail fans massed in Lancashire to watch the Flying Scotsman zoom past after a £4.2m overhaul, and British pilot Tracey Curtis-Taylor touched down in Sydney after a 14,600-mile solo flight in a 1942 open-cockpit biplane – marking the feat of Amy Johnson in 1930, who became the first woman to fly solo between the two countries.

Bless her: Tracey even sorted out her own funeral details before she took off. Just in case.

America saw its first case of the zika virus (usually not fatal to us, but the virus carried by mosquitos can cause birth defects). It was confirmed in a patient in Texas who had come back from Latin America.

A suspected Russian air strike killed eight children in Syria and hurt many more people. The plight of people in this country, wracked by civil war, would be one of the saddest stories of the year.

Labour MP Toby Perkins campaigned (fruitlessly) for an England-only national anthem, similar to the rousing songs of neighbours Wales and Scotland.

The Essex village of Alresford found itself in the national news for considering using forensic DNA tests to catch owners who let their dogs poo in public places.

Prince William, a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance, joined staff and children for a school dinner of roast chicken and cauliflower cheese after landing his helicopter on the playing field. The school in Stevenage is next to a hospital.

UK astronaut Major Tim Peake’s first spacewalk ended prematurely when water began collecting in his colleague’s helmet. But Tim wasn’t downcast. He tweeted: “Today’s exhilarating #spacewalk will be etched in my memory forever – quite an incredible feeling!”

Another running story: Bulldozers began knocking down parts of “The Jungle” refugee camp in Calais.

The Queen is big on hats (Picture: Photo: Toby Melville/PA) (Image: Archant)

Space agency NASA said 2015 was the planet’s hottest year of modern times. “During 2015, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62 Fahrenheit (0.90 Celsius) above the 20th century average,” it reported.

People using social media site Reddit declared Luton the worst place in the UK. They also didn’t think much of Stevenage, Hemel Hempstead, Rhyl or Coventry.

A school in Darlington asked parents not to wear pyjamas or slippers when dropping off their children in the morning. Apparently, some had even attended assemblies and meetings in their nightwear…

The head teacher said that “if we’re to raise standards, it’s not too much to ask parents to have a wash and get dressed”.

And so to FEBRUARY, and OPP (which provides businesses with psychometric tests) claimed Norwich was the UK city where workers were most happy in their jobs. There were fewest smiles in Newcastle, Cardiff and Glasgow.

Strife between the Government and junior doctors (over working arrangements) was another running sore of 2016. After strikes had seen about 7,000 operations cancelled, there were suggestions a new contract could be imposed on junior doctors within days.

MPs made an 11th hour attempt to keep British laws being written down on calfskin vellum. The House of Lords wanted to replace it with more basic paper and save £80,000 a year.

Singer Kylie Minogue, then 47, and British actor Joshua Sasse, 28, revealed their engagement on the “announcements” page of a daily newspaper. And Harry Potter star Emma “Hermione” Watson declared she was taking a year off acting to read literature and develop a United Nations project to improve gender equality.

Most celebrities relish social media, but actress Penelope Cruz this year admitted being scared of it. She told a Spanish newspaper she had resisted Facebook and Twitter, and said: ‘I’m on Instagram but I use it for specific things. It’s a bit frightening, really. I’m not going to photograph the fried eggs I eat in the morning. It seems unnatural to me, like posting photos of my family’

After two long days (and nights) in Brussels, negotiating with our EU friends, Prime Minister David Cameron returned to London to call a Cabinet meeting on a Saturday.

He tweeted later: “The Cabinet has agreed to recommend that the UK remains in a reformed European Union. I will be making a referendum announcement shortly.”

Psychologists from the University of the West of England said gulls thrived in well-off areas with nice buildings, such as Bath. An expert said: “Where would you rather be – on a cliff-top somewhere, or on a nice ledge with ready food source?”

Four people were feared dead when a building collapsed at Didcot Power Station. The station shut in 2013 and was being knocked down.

Dame Janet Smith’s £6.5million report about Jimmy Savile’s sex abuse was condemned as a whitewash after saying the BBC should not be held responsible for its ex-employee’s crimes. The report spoke of an “atmosphere of fear”, with big names “treated with kid gloves” and thus “virtually untouchable”. But senior managers were never made aware of the allegations, despite the rumours.

MARCH: Health experts urged the Government to ban tackling in school rugby games, saying youngsters were suffering major head and spinal injuries.

Former Hollywood star Nancy Reagan, wife of late American president Ronald, died in Los Angeles of heart failure at 94.

A McDonald’s branch in Manchester hired security staff to tackle anti-social behaviour by children, following instances of seats being set on fire and customers abused. The Chorlton restaurant would be letting in just two teenagers at a time.

There was a major rumpus after Top Gear (now minus Clarkson, Hammond and May) filmed a car doing wheelspins and tyre-burning circular “doughnut” manoeuvres near the Cenotaph in London.

Complainants said it was disrespectful to do it near a war memorial, and new host Chris Evans apologised. Chancellor George Osborne tweeted, during the filming: “Trying to write my Budget, despite noisy episode of @BBC_TopGear being filmed outside on Horseguards Parade. Keep it down please @achrisevans”

Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, resigned from the Government in protest at Mr Osborne’s planned cuts to benefits for the disabled.

He told the Prime Minister: “While they are defensible in narrow terms, given the continuing deficit, they are not defensible in the way they were placed within a Budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers.”

Daft stories of 2016 1: The National Environment Research Council’s decision to let us vote on a name for its £200m new research vessel. Boaty McBoatface came top. Luckily, the poll wasn’t binding, so the ship will be known as RRS Sir David Attenborough. As a consolation prize, one of the remote-controlled submersibles carried by the vessel will be known as Boaty McBoatface.

Daft stories of 2016 2: Artist Tracey Emin married a rock in France, telling The Art Newspaper “It just means that at the moment I am not alone; somewhere on a hill facing the sea, there is a very beautiful ancient stone, and it’s not going anywhere.”

At breakfast time on March 22, two blasts tore through the departure lounge of Brussels Airport. About an hour later came the third of the coordinated suicide bombings, at a metro station not far from the European Parliament. The bombings – carried out by a group involved in the attacks on Paris the previous November – left 32 people dead and injured more than 300.

ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) claimed responsibility for the most murderous act of terrorism in the history of Belgium.

After plenty of lovely weather on Good Friday, Storm Katie brought a touch of reality for southern Britain later in the Easter weekend, with torrential rain and winds of up to 105mph. The Met Office said the strongest winds on Easter Monday were off the Isle of Wight.

Using accident claim data, insurer 1st Central reckoned the worst drivers – by profession – were accountants, followed by solicitors, doctors, financial advisers, letting agents, airline cabin crew, bank managers, IT managers, pharmacists and train drivers. The best included roofers, farm workers, builders, lorry drivers and cleaners.

The Queen enjoyed her 90th birthday on April 21 – marked in Windsor with a daytime parade and the lighting of 900 beacons across the nation in the evening – but the major showpieces came later in the year.

A big one was the three-day “Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration” – the main feature a 90-minute chronicling of The Queen’s love of horses, her dedication to duty, and her links with the armed forces.

Held in the middle of May, in the private grounds of Windsor Castle, the event employed theatrical lighting and video projection.

It involved 900 horses and more than 1,500 participants (including actors, bands and dancers) from across the UK and the globe as it charted the monarch’s life from birth, through the Second World War to marriage, her coronation and reign of more than 60 years and counting.

The final evening’s spectacle was aired on ITV, in a show hosted by Ant and Dec.

In May, many people’s attention was also captured by Harambe, a silverback gorilla in Cincinnati Zoo.

Staff shot him dead as a precaution after three-year-old Isaiah Dickerson fell into the enclosure. It sparked controversy about the way the gorilla was treated.

No-one will forget June. Feelings about the EU referendum ran high. Then, on the 16th, extremist Thomas Mair murdered Labour MP Jo Cox outside a constituency surgery in West Yorkshire.

The mother of two was shot three times and stabbed 15 times by Mair, who shouted “Britain First”. He was jailed for life at the Old Bailey in November for murder.

Seven days after Jo Cox’s death, we went to the polls: voting 52% to 48% (near enough) to leave the EU.

“Remainer” David Cameron stood outside 10 Downing Street and resigned as Prime Minister. Theresa May later took over, though not before some internecine conflict within the Conservative Party.

The moment of 2016 for many people, though, had come earlier in the month. The Queen’s official birthday, marked by Trooping the Colour, was on June 11. The celebrations came to a head the following day with a street party for 10,000 folk on The Mall and a vibrant carnival parade.

Even the rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of a nation.

And that’s the kind of feeling we want to remember from a year many of us will be happy to forget. In 12 months, perhaps we will be summarising 2017 as a year of kindness and stability that began to solve some of the world’s intractable problems.